Has the 2013 Indian Open been a success?

From the outset, I've had this impression that the Indian Open has been a ranking event which was shoehorned into the calendar to give India a ranking tournament. An impression enhanced by the fact that this tournament using best of 7's throughout until tonight to complete

Would it have been better to have a five day invitational tournament, to see what the reaction to the event? Or to have a tournament of 32 rather than 64 players allowing it to follow a format similar to the Welsh Open to create a usual 2 session final?

Mehta's success, and Advani's too has made the tournament more enjoyable. Particularly in countries where the game is not overly strong such as India and Brazil, it's important that the local fans have something to cheer in terms of success.

Thanks to Advani and Mehta it seems assured that the event will be on the calendar but could it be improved? Would 7 days be better rather than five?

I think the Indian Open was a great success and it wasent shoe horned its been in the pipeline for at least 3 years.

Yes the matches were too short im not in favour of Main Rankers having Best of 7 frame Matches with no intervals i think MSI Adds something to the tournaments and creates pressure for players that's leading 3-1 or even 4-0.

But i think it was right that it was a Ranking Event and the crowds came out in force to watch it but in a smallish Venue.But even that worked nothing worst than a crowd of 900 in a 3,500 capacity venue id rather have 600 in a 800 capacity venue.

Even if the tournament hadn't been great it would have been a success, just by the raise in profile it has given snooker in India.

Even the Wild Card places (something I normally hate) were a great profile-raiser amongst the players, lots of players entering including ones who are decent club players with little chance of getting far - perhaps just wanting to say they'd played in the Indian Open. Some players who play more pool or billiards entered too. Shame they put the final part of qualifying on at the same time as World Six Reds so top amateur prospect Laxman Rawat couldn't have a crack at it - a very inconsistent player, but at his best a real threat.

Some large increases in the number of players entering state national championships too, particularly at Junior and sub-junior level. Can't prove the Indian Open's the cause, and probably not the only one, but surely part of this. Would be good if the top amateurs rather than those a little further down were encouraged by this to have a go at Q School, time will tell on that.

So, the tournament itself. I'm a bit of a philistine anyway in that I like short format for non-major championships (would have much longer UK and International Championship if I had my way though), so I wasn't that unhappy (prefer best of 9). Decent crowds too, who were clearly enjoying it. With a history of watching longer billiards matches, I think maybe Indian crowds might be more receptive than Chinese to longer format matches, I could even see this turning into a major over time.

Still torn over whether the stated plan of moving to different cities is the best one, moving to Mehta's home state of Maharashtra (where snooker is very popular) would seem a good idea for next time if they are going to move around.

Wildey wrote:I think the Indian Open was a great success and it wasent shoe horned its been in the pipeline for at least 3 years.

Yes the matches were too short im not in favour of Main Rankers having Best of 7 frame Matches with no intervals i think MSI Adds something to the tournaments and creates pressure for players that's leading 3-1 or even 4-0.

But i think it was right that it was a Ranking Event and the crowds came out in force to watch it but in a smallish Venue.But even that worked nothing worst than a crowd of 900 in a 3,500 capacity venue id rather have 600 in a 800 capacity venue.

Being honest if I was 4-0 up in a best of 7 match I wouldn't be feeling under pressure

Wildey wrote:I think the Indian Open was a great success and it wasent shoe horned its been in the pipeline for at least 3 years.

Yes the matches were too short im not in favour of Main Rankers having Best of 7 frame Matches with no intervals i think MSI Adds something to the tournaments and creates pressure for players that's leading 3-1 or even 4-0.

But i think it was right that it was a Ranking Event and the crowds came out in force to watch it but in a smallish Venue.But even that worked nothing worst than a crowd of 900 in a 3,500 capacity venue id rather have 600 in a 800 capacity venue.

Being honest if I was 4-0 up in a best of 7 match I wouldn't be feeling under pressure

i was talking about best of 9s or best of 11s with a interval thrown in

It's always hard to answer a question like this unless you've actually been to the venues and experienced the atmosphere first hand, in my opinion. However, judging from the coverage I saw, the good crowds and the success of the Indian players I would say yes. With the matches being so short it was hard for the players to get into a groove though.

Hello - I am a Brit based in Delhi for work for three years. While I like snooker, I wouldn't say I was a die-hard fan, but I just thought I would type a few lines on my impressions of the tournament.Media/press coverage - The newspapers in India have given plenty of coverage to the tournament - proper articles with photographs, not just a few lines buried in an inside page. Television coverage was pretty woeful, but at least there was some. Streaming was blocked in India, so I had to rely on Indian television - sports coverage here is dominated by global brands like ESPN and Star Sports. The snooker was only covered on the state broadcaster's sports channel, which usually runs rubbish like junior table tennis from four years ago. The commentary on the snooker coverage was decent but hampered by eccentric technical issues and editing decisions which do afflict this channel. For example, Ebdon's game against one of the Indian players got to three-all, and then the coverage suddenly stopped and transmission went to a repeat of a shooting event from the London Olympics which didn't even involve any Indians. The final was supposedly shown delayed live - not sure why - again, there was something fairly meaningless on before, so not sure why they couldn't show it live as they had done other nights. So it is progressing merrily along on delayed live until the end of frame one. Then they go for a break and, without warning, it returns with the pictures still on delayed live, but the commentary on actual live! The pictures are showing Frame Two, but the commentators are saying "So that makes it four-nil to Ding". It did rather do away with any anticipation of what might happen.Ticket Prices - I paid 1500 Rupees for a day pass - four sessions. That is about 15 quid. Think the final may have been 2000 Rupees - about 20 quid. That's a lot of money for India, but certainly not beyond the means of the substantial Indian middle class in Delhi. As a comparison, I think I paid about 750 Rupees for a ticket to an IPL T20 game last year (that was one of the cheap seats). Ticket checks at the snooker were not that thorough, and I'm sure a few people sneaked in without tickets.Venue - The venue was a swanky hotel in Delhi - I'm sure the players would have found it on a par, if not better, than the places they stay anywhere in the world or back in the UK. The number of withdrawals from the tournament was disappointing. I know some were for genuine reasons, but I do wonder if some were because they didn't fancy the trip. More fool them - they missed out on a fab hotel, and an opportunity to see a fascinating city/country in comfort. I saw some of the players one night heading out for a beer; they were eschewing the hotel car for a tuk-tuk race - they seemed to be enjoying their trip.Attendance - The sessions I went to were, at most, half full. The TV table was one of the centre tables, and obviously had the most crowd-friendly games on. People tended to cluster in seats by this table, and maybe made the venue look fuller than it was on the telly. The attendees were mainly Indian middle-class blokes. But that applies to most events/concerts/etc in India. Crowd behaviour was also quite similar to other events - lots of moving around and mobile phones being used; it is nigh on impossible to stop Indians wandering round a venue and using their phones, even as a player is playing a shot - and they probably wouldn't appreciate why that may be a problem. Having said that, most of the crowd seemed to know their stuff, and knew what was a good shot and a bad shot. And they, of course, were favouring their own players, but were in no way disrespectful to their opponents.The future - I presume the event will happen again next year, but maybe in a different city. Somewhere like Mumbai or Bangalore could, I'm sure, put on a decent tournament. Whether it makes any difference to snooker in India, I don't know. Snooker tables to play on are hard to find - think they are mainly in the members only clubs which are the preserve of the richest of Indians. It is interesting to see what has happened with the Indian Formula 1 Grand Prix - next weekend sees its third running. But it's not happening next year, and while there is a vague promise that it will be back on the calendar in 2015, I am not that sure it will. Cricket remains king here, and many other sports are having a go at cracking the Indian market, but generally failing. The way things are, sports participation is the domain of the rich here. Even cricket, which is universally loved and played, has few opportunities for the vast majority of the population. Selection for sports participation at any reasonable level involves money here.Anyhow, I've rambled on enough. It was certainly good to have top level snooker players here, and I got to see some decent sport, which is definitely one of the things I miss from home (mind you, it's probably stretching it a bit to say that my team, Bolton Wanderers, provide decent viewing at the moment).